The Revolution pilot is online now...

stj, the key phrase in your post is "I think". It is all well and good that you have your personal opinions about the human condition, but it is conjecture. Revolution is speculative fiction, and as such its premise is just as valid as any other story in the genre.

The writers could just as easily have written the same plot and then set the characters in a Little Town on the Prairie or Gunsmoke setting, but then it would have been a different story.

You cannot just say a fantasy/sf story or novel is no good because you don't agree with a premise that can neither be proven or dis-proven.

(all of them losing all forward momentum and simultaneously entering a flat spin, which is incredibly rare in and of itself) are two of the bigger problems I've had with the show's premise.

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So, "all" in this context is based on a known set of one crash seen on screen?

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More like at least the three or four we saw in the premiere, most of which were taking place in the background. All of them, also inexplicably, had their lights on as they were falling, too. Just to make sure we could see them tumbling in the dark.

stj, the key phrase in your post is "I think". It is all well and good that you have your personal opinions about the human condition, but it is conjecture. Revolution is speculative fiction, and as such its premise is just as valid as any other story in the genre.

The writers could just as easily have written the same plot and then set the characters in a Little Town on the Prairie or Gunsmoke setting, but then it would have been a different story.

You cannot just say a fantasy/sf story or novel is no good because you don't agree with a premise that can neither be proven or dis-proven.

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I think the point of citing Katrina was to provide evidence that Revolution's negative view of humanity was acceptably plausible. A plausible conjecture in SF is always better writing than an implausible. I must repeat that Katrina in reality is evidence that this negative view of humanity is a politically correct assertion made in defiance of facts, as an avowal of a particular worldview. Therefore the shenanigans on Revolution are forced, artificial but artless, meaningless, boring. Obviously, this is my judgment. But it is directly related to judgments about humanity and art. You may disagree with these particular views, but both kinds of judgment are relevant. The success (or lack of it) in any kind of art is not separable from larger considerations about society, history, humanity.

The writers have clearly established that absolute murderous chaos instantly broke out and only the baddest asses like Miles and his Sith apprentice Bass were able to cope. This strikes me as nasty minded nonsense.

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Who said it was instant?

The simple fact of the matter is that without the transportation network in near-constant use, the population of North America is currently not in the right place(s) to be fed.

So it doesn't matter if people would want to band together and do mutual good to deal with the crisis. It doesn't matter how noble anyone is. Seven days after the transportation network goes down, there won't be enough resources to go around in any reasonably urban area. And that means that somebody's going to eat and somebody's going to starve. If you don't think the determination of who is who will be made with violence, you're crazy.

Personally, I think everyone would start out helpful. Barbecues on city streets. Restaurants giving away all their food before it spoils. Surgeons providing medical attention under mirrored sunlight. And that would last a solid week.

Then the food would run out in the most densely populated areas, and all of that would go away.

That has nothing to do with having a reactionary worldview. It's just a matter of math. There won't be enough resources. Some people will be willing and able to use violence to secure resources and some won't. Such a situation unfortunately favors those with fewer moral scruples.

In fact they suggested it was not instant as the Marines were sitting in the quarters for weeks awaiting orders and the family waited before loading the red flyer wagon to escape their city/suburb with the magic amulet.

Even looking at Chicago, the only damage that's been done that I can recall off the top of my head comes from the ridiculously overgrown plant life or crashed trains (why they crashed, I have no idea; though I could be misremembering a massive wreck) and airliners. All the windows and doors in the buildings we've seen were in place. There were no signs of large fires or riots. Cars, when we saw them, were just abandoned and maybe had their doors left open. But beyond that, no real signs of the chaos that should and would have occurred. Hell, the only violence we've seen in flashbacks have only involved one or two people.

The fact that the people at Monroe's base actually were just sitting pretty and doing nothing while "waiting for orders" is the biggest WTF of them all.

...... So steam power works now? Technology just jumped from late-18th century to mid-19th century level.

Where are the steam ships? Where are the steam tractors? Where are the factories? Steam power still existing allows for everything from mass production to airships to rudimentary tanks.

You've got steam wagons, steam rockets, steam tanks, steam cannons, steam ships, steam tractors. This whole world just went steampunk. How the hell did the world just collapse when steam power still works? We had a country that stretched from sea to bloody sea even before the telegraph!

Maybe this means that countries like the United Kingdom stayed relatively intact, isolated from the outside world, small area, still heavily uses steam engines.

It all went on hold until enough corn came off of the farms that a great majority of the population was not tied down producing and moving it. Because while someone may wanted to invest in a steam engine that person who was not investing but taxing would eat their seed corn.

Are there that many steam engines left around these days? I'd imagine that after the initial chaos and death, the sheer decimation of the populace and infrastructure across the now divided country would make it hard to make new steam engines.

we can barely repair the working steam locomotives that are still running now. There are not very many places that have the set-up for that. And how many of them would still be available with trained workers after civilization collapses. So basically, The trains from the various steam train associations are available for them to use but it's only a matter of time before something breaks that they can't repair.

Books aren't gone, most cities seem to be intact. Hell, Monroe is based in Independence Hall.

An organized force like the Monroe Republic should have been able to get steam power back into general use fairly quickly. There are plenty of steam locomotives still running today and there are entire museums dedicated to the preservation of steam engines. Steam locomotives and engines are fairly simple devices in all honestly. As long as they don't catastrophically fail, repair is not difficult.

It just seems out of the blue to me. This is the kind of thing that messes up shows for me. I'll still watch it, but it just won't feel right.

The trick with the steam engine (or any other old tech that needs to be re-invented), so that we all know what it IS, but can you build one?

For the most part, we've moved past the industrious, handy people of the past, and we're just consumers at this point. Most of us don't know how ANYTHING works, not really.

Sure, you could name plenty of people that could figure it out, but when you kill 90+ % of the population, how many of them were the tough, scrappy, aggressive types that would have survived the mass die-off? Not many. And you'd need a setup to build these kinds of things, and again, good luck.

They've talked about how rare bullets are, but I'm not convinced that muskets would be any MORE common (much less, actually), and then you still need supplies to make it work, a cache of gunpowder, etc.

The trick with the steam engine (or any other old tech that needs to be re-invented), so that we all know what it IS, but can you build one?

For the most part, we've moved past the industrious, handy people of the past, and we're just consumers at this point. Most of us don't know how ANYTHING works, not really.

Sure, you could name plenty of people that could figure it out, but when you kill 90+ % of the population, how many of them were the tough, scrappy, aggressive types that would have survived the mass die-off? Not many. And you'd need a setup to build these kinds of things, and again, good luck.

They've talked about how rare bullets are, but I'm not convinced that muskets would be any MORE common (much less, actually), and then you still need supplies to make it work, a cache of gunpowder, etc.

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you don't think the tough scrappy types would be the most likely to survive?

and correct me if I'm wrong ( and I am a lot) but wouldn't a musket be really easy to make out of a piece of pipe and some wood?

you don't think the tough scrappy types would be the most likely to survive?

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Of course I do. I don't think the book-smart folks that would be required would BE those tough, scrappy types I'm talking about, though. At best, a few might be picked up and 'kept' by some of the more organized and forward thinking street gangs or militia-types...

and correct me if I'm wrong ( and I am a lot) but wouldn't a musket be really easy to make out of a piece of pipe and some wood?

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[/quote] I wouldn't have to, the exploded piece of pipe, and your ruined hands and face would correct you for me.

Not impossible that you could cobble something together, but we're talking more improvised 1-shot device rather than functional and accurate weapon. For fun, do you HAVE the right length, diameter, and thickness pipe for what you have in mind? And a way to cap the one end to force the explosion out the other? What do you have onhand that you can make lead balls out of, wadding, etc? Got gunpowder handy, and know how much to use? It's more complicated that Kirk vs the Gorn indicated...

Can back that up even more, people today don't know how to make SHIT. You eventually give up on the gun because it's hard and/pr dangerous, and figure you can at least go back to bow and arrow. Turns out that those are hard without experience and materials as well. You can slap something together, but it won't work for shit, and is more likely to hurt you than anyone else. To go back far enough to find a weapon the average person can make and handle, you're going to wind up with swords (Stirling is right, car leaf springs would nice here, or at the very least, plenty of metal around you can work with just by sharpening one end and padding a handle), or a pointy stick.

We take the older low tech for granted, because we're way past that tech-wise. But most of us can't MAKE the current tech ourselves, or even the stuff several layers below that.

For fun, while we're assuming things, we'll assume that the reviews of those books were better, and that they included very specific how-to instructions. How many of those types of books would assume that you are working with hand tools and scraps of metal left over from a dead civilization, and that you can't order the parts you need to put this together. You need a book on learning to smelt metal, form parts, etc before you can do this one. And you need a book to learn to build the stuff needed for that step as well.

And that all starts from assuming that the libraries weren't already looted by like-minded people. Or burned for warmth. And the biggest, most comprehensive libraries are in the big cities. Looting, rioting, out of control fires that just aren't being fought by more than a bucket brigade. And that's before the anarchy, cannibalism, and disease/plague parts kick in, as populations in the millions realize that there's nothing left to eat, no help coming, and nowhere to go.

Get past ALL that, grab the 'how to build a steam engine' book. It's great that civilization has it, but what's it doing for YOU? It makes you a target, and unless you're in a large protected group boarded up somewhere, you're not safe enough or stationary enough to try and build up the parts and expertise you need to try it anyway. Even if you can think of anything to do with a small steam engine in the first place. And you need to prioritize carrying those books as you walk/run from place to place hiding, looking for food, etc. How many would you carry, and what would you leave behind to do so? Would the steam engine book really fall above that line?

What I'm trying to point out in all this is that there are some LARGE steps between knowing something is possible to make, and being able to do so. Looking it up on the internet, or finding a book about it does NOT equal ability. And to get to that point, you need a stable, safe location, and enough time in your day where you AREN'T fighting for your survival or staving to death to play in the book to begin with.

Just as many books on how to smelt a sword, doesn't mean you'd have the materials, ability, or time to outfit a clan of ninjas anytime soon.